Project information

NSPCC Helpline

Many vulnerable children cannot seek help for themselves and rely on adults to speak out for them. The NSPCC Helpline protects thousands of children each year. Many adults with concerns about a child won’t contact social services, but by contacting the Helpline protect the most vulnerable children.

The Helpline is a core part of the NSPCC's work and will continue until it is no longer needed

Charity information: NSPCC

Need

International research has shown that babies, toddlers and children with disabilities are at a significantly higher risk of abuse. There are a number of reasons for this, for example, they are less able or completely unable to seek help, or they may not understand what is happening to them. For the same reasons, they often have to rely on adults to seek help for them.

Solution

Helplines are known to play a critical role in child protection, identifying children at risk and providing support. The NSPCC Helpline exists to empower the public and professionals to seek advice and report abuse for those that cannot do so themselves. When adults contact us, our practitioners offer advice, and where there are serious concerns for a child’s safety, they make referrals to other agencies. 66% of callers to the Helpline had not contacted another agency prior to calling the NSPCC.

What success will look like

Impact

The NSPCC Helpline would like to see more understanding and awareness among the public of what constitutes child abuse. We also aim to encourage a cultural shift, to empower the public and professionals working with children to speak up on behalf of a child whenever they have a concern.
We will demonstrate this success by closely monitoring the number of child protection related calls received and the number of calls that require referral to agencies such as the police and social services.

Risk

Risks include the public being unaware of its existence or being worried about confidentiality, and not contacting the NSPCC Helpline when they have a concern about a child. We are dealing with the former by developing several marketing campaigns for the Helpline, including a ‘Save the Number’ campaign at football matches, and have plans for further campaigns. The latter is dealt with by ensuring that the public are aware that calls to the NSPCC Helpline are all strictly confidential.

Reporting

Donors currently receive regular reports about how their money is being used to develop the NSPCC Helpline. We keep donors updated on our latest call statistics and share with them the actions that we will often take following calls.

Location

The NSPCC Helpline operates from three bases across the UK: London, Salford and Bangor. All bases are able to take calls from anywhere in the UK, therefore covering all demographics. Callers are also able to request practitioners that speak Welsh or Asian languages.

Beneficiaries

All adults in the UK are able to call the NSPCC Helpline on behalf of a child that is not able to speak up for themselves, and therefore our vision is that all children will be able to rely on this service and those that call on their behalf.

Why Us?

When adults contact us with concerns for a child, our staff offer advice and make referrals to other agencies. 80% of callers were confident the child would be safer as a result of their call to the Helpline. 36% of NSPCC Helpline referrals are about children who are not known to local authorities. Without the referral these children would not receive any support and would continue to suffer in silence. Since April 2008 more than 7,000 children unknown to local authorities have received support.